For many optical system applications, there is a requirement for a high power, high repetition rate laser source. One example of such an application is optical computing which requires a source having a few watts of average power at a repetition rate of more than a gigahertz. Currently, there are no optical sources which satisfy these two important requirements. Semiconductors laser operate at repetition rate up to the GHz regime with only an average power of a few milliwatts, while solid state lasers are capable of producing tens of watts of average power at repetition rates less than 100 MHz.